Joe Posnanski on Why Bruce Matters (to Him in Japan)

Regular readers can count on one hand the number of times I've written a link post; that's because I consider such appropriations the equivalent of blasting music from moving cars: you want credit for having taste enough to love what you're listening to.   So I try to avoid other people's prose (yeah you know me) and declaring it telling/moving/compelling/&c.—but on the rare occasion I do so, I hope you take my recommendation seriously. 

In this case, I'm pointing to Joe Posnanski's inspired (not inspiring) account of a bout of crippling back pain in Japan.  Posnanski's quickly becoming one of my favorite writers: he reads with an enthusiasm and voraciousness I don't often encounter and writes with unparalleled humanity.  Offhand, the only person I can think of who moves me as much or as frequently as Posnanski would be Wally—both communicate the content of particular experience expansively.  (Others may move you intellectually, but few writers can make you remember what it was like to feel before you could think.  I mean this as the highest of compliments.)  Joe and Wally make you remember the joy of uncritical fandom.  You feel what they do because they do real good with words.

I don't. 

Especially when I can't draft posts.  (Hope you don't mind your Acephalous raw.)  That said: I can't recommend Posnanski's most recent post highly enough, even if you're not a fan of Springsteen and know nothing about baseball.  More below the fold:

I didn’t hear “Born to Run”—the album—until I was in college. And, like countless other kids, I listened to it over and over and over again, even though none of the songs really spoke to me, not literally. I don’t know anything about cars or the backstreets of the big city, and I haven’t really been around too many people like Eddie or the Magic Rat or the barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge (drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain). I still have absolutely no idea what Tenth Avenue Freeze Out is supposed to be about. I guess Bad Scooter was searching for his groove.

But it doesn’t matter, not to me. There was something electric in the music, something I NEEDED to hear at that moment in my life, something I still love to hear, something about wanting to bust out and make a name for yourself and just be heard, man. I was like most of my friends, I had this nameless ambition to do something, be something, but also this overriding suspicion that I was going to live a half life with a dead-end, John Cusack, “I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed, or repair anything …” kind of job. Bruce shouted down that fear. We’re gonna get to the place where we really wanna go and then we’ll walk in the sun.

Other Bruce albums and songs through the years have had that sort of impact on me—from my college days to my Dad days—they helped me wallow in self pity some days and kicked me out of bed on others and made me believe on other days. Again, I don’t think that it was the words and music. It was something more than that, something that Nick Hornby described once as “God walking into the song.” I just listened to those Bruce songs so much that they triggered something in me. They brought me closer to what lies underneath.

Even now, I don’t consider myself a Springsteen fanatic. My wife thinks I am one, but I know those people. They are my friends. They listen to imports. They travel around the country to see him. They can tell you which version of “Badlands” is better—the one he recorded in Philly or the one he did in Boston—and they know Springsteen songs I’ve never heard of, and they know everything about Springsteen himself. I don’t really know much about that. I don’t even remember the lyrics to some of his songs I’ve heard 150 times. I just know how his music makes me feel.

The other night, in a hotel room in Nagoya, I woke up at 5 a.m. with my back shooting sparks of pain. I have never really had any back pain before, certainly nothing like this, and I’m not going to lie to you—it scared the living hell out of me. I’m here in Japan, alone, I don’t know anybody, I don’t speak the language, I had no earthly idea what to do. I thought maybe I threw out my back. I thought maybe I was having kidney stones (I have since talked to people who have had kidney stones—they assured me that I would have known without any doubt, so that, oddly enough, made me feel better). I thought a lot of bad things actually. The pain would not subside no matter where I went, no matter how I sat or walked or laid down. It was pretty bad.

And then, finally, the pain eased. I still don’t know where it came from or where it went—I’m not looking for theories either, I’m just glad it’s gone—and I stretched out on the bed (because here the beds are harder than the floors—that could have something to do with it) and I put on my iPod and closed my eyes. I listened to my new favorite Springsteen song, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes.”

A kid’s rubber ball smacks
Off the gutter ‘neath the lamp light
Big bank clock chimes
Off got the sleepy front porch lights
Downtown the stores alight as the evening’s underway
Things’ been a little tight
But I know they’re gonna turn my way

And in an instant, I was back in America, back where everything feels familiar, where the street lights shine down on Blessing Avenue, and, I don’t know, everything felt all right again.

I don’t know if “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” is a “good” song as far as that goes. Critics may hate it. Springsteen fans may think it’s the worst song on the album. Music snobs may read this and realize that they could never been my friend because this is the song I listened to in a dark and lonely Japanese hotel room when I could barely move—I mean, I really don’t know, hell, it may be the musical equivalent of “According to Jim.” It doesn’t really matter though. I don’t think you choose what music saves you. I think you just listen and feel lucky that you found it.

Comments

[Nate]

I got the adverb intellectually as my link, I am clearly the winner in some kind of contest. Huzzah! I hope the prize is sleep!

[SEK]

Sorry, Nate, I'm hoarding that at the moment.

[Nate]

Damn. Well, can I come over to yours and just like ... admire your sleep-hoard? I'm not asking for a loan or anything, just want to see how other half lives.

[Curtis Hendricks]

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[Teena Stafford]

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http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpo/ >Office of the Chief Procurement Officer
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